July 01, 2016

Several UC Berkeley economics professors who support “income inequality” research each earn more than $300,000 a year, putting them in the top 2 percent of the public university’s salary distribution, according to a recent report by a nonpartisan California think tank.

The report pointed out that the prominent scholars leading or advising the Cal Berkeley Center for Equitable Growth are richly compensated as professors, even as the center seeks to research ways to create economic growth that is “fairly shared,” the center’s website states.

June 02, 2016

A 24-year-old teacher is accused of having sex with an eighth grade student, and that’s not the only screwed up part of the whole fiasco.

According to KPRC News, Alexandria Vera is now pregnant with the 14-year-old’s child.

Vera also claims the boys’ parents knew about their relationship and even approved of it, allowing the teen to sleep over at her apartment on numerous occasions. She added that she would drop him off at the bus stop for school the morning afterwards.

A former Houston middle school teacher has been arrested after she admitted to investigators that she was in love with one of her students and had sex with him “on almost a daily basis” starting when he was just 13 years old.

Alexandria Vera, 24, turned herself in on charges that she sexually abused the boy, who is now 14, while carrying on a relationship with him for nearly five months. Vera admitted to investigators that she became pregnant during the fling, according to court documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

Poor boy. I mean that is total torture how the government pressured her to murder that baby.

When Vera got pregnant, she tells investigators the family was “excited” and “very supportive” when they found out.

However, court documents reveal that she became nervous after Child Protective Services visited her school and interviewed the couple about their relationship. She eventually aborted her unborn baby.

April 15, 2016

The struggle is real, my friends. We’ve already looked at the horror being inflicted upon special snowflakes around the country these days as #TheChalkening sends college students scurrying for their safe space. Who knows what sort of lasting damage could ensue if young adults turn a corner on their morning walk only to see a name or campaign slogan emblazoned on the sidewalk where they are walking, enshrined there for all time? (Or at least until the next rainfall.)

Its for the children.....

I won't even mention the total irony of banning chalk at school. But from what I hear, in the hands of Einstein it was a deadly weapon.

The struggle is real, my friends. We’ve already looked at the horror being inflicted upon special snowflakes around the country these days as #TheChalkening sends college students scurrying for their safe space. Who knows what sort of lasting damage could ensue if young adults turn a corner on their morning walk only to see a name or campaign slogan emblazoned on the sidewalk where they are walking, enshrined there for all time? (Or at least until the next rainfall.)

Its for the children.....

I won't even mention the total irony of banning chalk at school. But from what I hear, in the hands of Einstein it was a deadly weapon.

March 17, 2016

AST FARMINGDALE, N.Y. - (AP) -- A New York college that went on lockdown over a report of a gun on campus says the weapon turned out to be a light saber.

Students and staff members at Farmingdale State College on Long Island were told to shelter in place Wednesday while police investigated a report that someone was assembling a rifle in a school parking lot.

College spokeswoman Kathryn Coley says the rifle was actually a "Star Wars" toy.

LOL, probably these students will now seek reparations from the Imperial Senate for the trauma, the absolute devastation caused when they realized they were total idiots.

November 12, 2015

“Felt aggressed upon” isn’t Melissa Click’s wording, it’s how a Mizzou administrator who spoke to her afterward about what happened characterized her feelings. Even so, it’s a superb Orwellian turn of phrase and true to the spirit of “safe space” fascism. “Aggression” can mean almost anything — actual violence, angry speech, or even refusing to move when some strutting sensitivity capo tells you to haul your ass out of her sight before she calls over some guys to remove you forcibly.

Your country is finished. You know that, right?

After reading and watching the videos I'm reminded of children on a trip to grandmas, Stop touching me! Mom! Billy is on my side!

Of course she doesn't even own her side its public property paid for by federal and state taxpayers, The supreme court has ruled there is no expectation of privacy in a public space.

So I suppose they have some grand plan for after the revolution? No, no they don't.

And you wonder why Trump is so popular? Maybe Americans want their country back.

September 13, 2015

June 12, 2015

DEAR ABBY: I am a single woman who borrowed $80,000 to send my daughter to college with the understanding that she would take over the payments once she was professionally established. She is now so "into" her new lifestyle that she is refusing to have contact with her "poor" birth mother. She refuses to take responsibility for repaying the loan, which is in my name, and says "tough luck" to my stupidity.

This means I will have to continue working until I drop dead. Abby, I am 60. Is there any help for me? Has this happened to other baby boomers? -- POOR BIRTH MOTHER IN GEORGIA

DEAR POOR: Sadly, yes it has. And no, there isn't help for you. Because the agreement with your daughter was verbal and wasn't put in writing, you don't have a legal means to force her to assume the loan payments.

Abby didn't realize the solution is right there, all BIRTH MOTHER IN GEORGIA has to do is die and problem solved!

ears later, I found myself confronted with a choice that too many people have had to and will have to face. I could give up what had become my vocation (in my case, being a writer) and take a job that I didn’t want in order to repay the huge debt I had accumulated in college and graduate school. Or I could take what I had been led to believe was both the morally and legally reprehensible step of defaulting on my student loans, which was the only way I could survive without wasting my life in a job that had nothing to do with my particular usefulness to society.

I chose life. That is to say, I defaulted on my student loans.

Lee they goes on to explain that in order to pay his student loans he's have to change his vocation so shoe salesman because at the time he wasn't making it as a writer, his chosen vocation.

It struck me as absurd that one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college. Having opened a new life to me beyond my modest origins, the education system was now going to call in its chits and prevent me from pursuing that new life, simply because I had the misfortune of coming from modest origins.

IN other words because at the beginning of Lee Siegel's career he could not afford to pay his student loans and also pay the rest of his bills. So his solution was to go even further in the hole and get a masters degree.

As if entry level writing would pay an even larger bill. He then goes on a tirade against the banks and Department of Education who guarantees the private loans that Lee took out.

Or maybe, after going back to school, I should have gone into finance, or some other lucrative career. Self-disgust and lifelong unhappiness, destroying a precious young life — all this is a small price to pay for meeting your student loan obligations.

Forty years after I took out my first student loan, and 30 years after getting my last, the Department of Education is still pursuing the unpaid balance. My mother, who co-signed some of the loans, is dead. The banks that made them have all gone under. I doubt that anyone can even find the promissory notes. The accrued interest, combined with the collection agencies’ opulent fees, is now several times the principal.

The Department of Education makes it hard for you, and ugly. But it is possible to survive the life of default. You might want to follow these steps: Get as many credit cards as you can before your credit is ruined. Find a stable housing situation. Pay your rent on time so that you have a good record in that area when you do have to move. Live with or marry someone with good credit (preferably someone who shares your desperate nihilism).

So Lee's solution to his bad credit is to leach off another's credit rating just like he leached his degree from the the taxpayer and also every single other person who paid their loans back?

Am I detecting a pattern here?

So now years later, not that Lee is a supposed success, an author with five published book and regular writing gigs it appears he is able to pay the bills he wants to pay but has no intention of paying back the loans that gave him the education he uses to pay for all those other bills. And he justifies it by pointing a self righteous finger, I mean down sprinkles at the the Dept of Education.

Am I a deadbeat?

Yes..... not only that but a leach as well.

What gives me the right to say that? Because I lived it. I too had to borrow to get an education and to my surprise I didn't get hired as VP on my first shot. No I had to start at the bottom, running proof, babysitting printers, can you imagine someone as precious and educated as me, with my qualification babysitting a band printer? OMG! The injustice.

So when I started I could not pay my loans either. I mean I has a choice to make I could pay my loans or eat. One of the two but not both. Maybe not as glamorous as living the precious life Lee was meant to lead. But I found eating to be a necessity.

So at first I could not pay but as I worked I began to move up, take new positions, learn my profession and while doing so I began to earn more money.

I began to pay my loans, not as much as the lenders wanted me to. But enough to hold the line on the balance, to stop the bleeding. Lenders bought and sold my loans down the line each adding their own brand special fees until it had been 10 years. My balance stubbornly high. The last lender now was able to claim the guarantee from the Department of Education and now the Federal government became my creditor.

No see this is another sticking point I have with Mr. Vulture. The last lender I had paid all the interest due and about $1000 in principal. At long last I was making progress on paying off my education. But when the Department of Education sent me their balance the previous lender had added enough in fees to undo all the progress I had made, it was as if I all the money I had paid for years was simply gone and I was back where I started.

But by this point I was earning enough to make a payment large enough to make a dent but I was down about starting over from the beginning. So I called the US Department of Education and talked to the person in charge of my account. I explained that I had paid the previous creditor on time every month and showed her how all the progress I had made against the principal was eaten up by fees posted the last few days that creditor had the account.

She went to work for me and recovered all those bogus fees from the previous creditor. Returning the progress I had made in the previous years. Not taking the interest the previous creditor had earned, just the tacked on fees for nothing.

So they we worked out a new payment. I kept it as low as possible because although I was earning a bit more it was still a struggle. But as I earned raises I would tack on extra principal to the payments. Starting at first with an extra $20 then $40, then $100. Ind the end the Department of Education was the best lender I worked with.

And guess what I paid them off. Ever. Last. Cent. I was 37 years old.

But Lee won't even try. Because as Lee Siegel admits he has no character. He feels not moral obligation to pay for his degrees. He fully intends to let the taxpayer an all those struggling to pay their loans to shoulder the burden of his default. And fully intends to allow the consequences of his default fall on those around him, admiring his precious self in someone else's mirror.

ike Lee Siegel, I came from a lower middle class background. So did my wife. Like many, many other Americans in our circumstances, we paid our student loan debts. Siegel doesn’t get to default on his and pretend his shameful abandonment of his obligations is justified.

The biographical note at the end of Siegel’s piece states: “Lee Siegel is the author of five books who is writing a memoir about money.” Good. I hope his memoir about money is successful, and that he makes a lot of cash from its sales.

April 02, 2015

A video (seen above) making its rounds on Facebook claiming that a pro-ISIS group held a panel at the University of New Mexico Wednesday is false; the panel was in fact a discussion about ISIS, but was hosted by Muslim leaders and focused on the differences between the beliefs of ISIS members and the Muslim community in general.

Though the panel was open to the public, Mr. Guebara states on his Facebook page he was asked to leave. I have screen shots of his FB posting and will provide these if asked, but I will not link it. According to another attendee’s post on a Facebook status, the panelists were asked repeatedly if they were against ISIS. The questions were basically ignored and were answered with the statement “we are Islamic”. I have reached out to that attendee as well as the UNM Muslim Student Association for further comment. The other attendee would not speak with me. The UNM Muslim Student Association did release a statement on their Facebook page regarding the video:

November 06, 2014

An Arizona college instructor charged that American soldiers are anti-Muslim rapists who pose "a greater threat" to world peace than ISIS, and says he leveled the charge to make the U.S. "stronger and better."

University of Arizona instructor Musa al-Gharbi, who also is an academic affiliate at the university’s Southwest Initiative for the Study of Middle East Conflicts, made the comments in a column penned for the online forum TruthOut, and defended them when reached by The Washington Free Beacon. He called Americans "hypocritical" for expressing moral outrage at the Islamic State, which has raped, murdered and beheaded thousands of Muslims and Christians in its quest to establish a Muslim caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

Al-Gharbi claimed that the isolated instances of U.S. soldiers committing atrocities including rape, for which they face court-martial and imprisonment if found guilty, are on a level with the widespread and systematic brutality of Islamic State radicals.

September 10, 2014

We asked the following questions to randomly selected students around the GWU campus:

Next week marks the anniversary of a major national event do you know what that is?

Do you know what ISIS is?

Did you know that ISIS is responsible for the beheading of two American journalists? If so, could you name one?

Are you aware of the celebrity "nude photo" hacking scandal? If so, could you name any of the celebrities involved?

The results are stunning:

6 out of 30 students recognized this week is the anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks

4 out of 30 students were able to name one of the American journalists beheaded at the hands of ISIS

29 out of 30 students were able to identify one or more celebrities involved in the nude photo hacking scandal

The reason for conducting this video project was to bring awareness to our 9/11: Never Forget Project which is designed to remember those murdered at the hands of radical Islamists more than a decade ago. (Source)

August 04, 2014

A professor at Kent State University in Ohio with a colorful history of anti-Israel sentiment has struck again with a letter addressed to “academic friends of Israel,” cursing them “more than the Israelis” for hiding behind “academic objectivity,” and holding them responsible for deaths in Gaza.

Dr. Julio Pino, an associate professor of history at the university, said in the letter, published by the History News Network, that he holds these academics “directly responsible for the murder of over 1,400 Palestinian children, women and elderly civilians over the past month,” as Israel launched its military campaign aimed at stopping rocket fire at Israeli cities and destroying tunnels that infiltrate into Israeli territory.

... “I curse you more than the Israelis, for while The Chosen drain the blood of innocents without apologies you hide behind the mask of academic objectivity, nobility of research and the reward of teaching to foreign youth—-in a segregated university, of course,” he wrote, before signing off with “jihad until victory!”

From Zip: According to the journal, Pino has tenure and it is very difficult to terminate his employment, even as the university has tried to distance itself from his remarks and stunts.

Of course Julio has been praising Jihad from Kent State since just after 9/11.

Julio is also the person behind the pro al-Qaeda terrorist forum known as http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/. Its been spreading al-Qaeda propaganda for years under a thinly veiled claim of "for information purposes only" but when one looks at Pino's views its clear the claim is just a ruse for aiding and abetting the enemies of the United States.

We should deport him back to Cuba and let him see how Castro views freedom of speech.

American Apparel has apologized after an employee posted the picture above for the 4th of July:

"We deeply apologize for today's Tumblr post of the Space Shuttle Challenger. The image was re-blogged in error by one of our international social media employees who was born after the tragedy and was unaware of the event. We sincerely regret the insensitivity of that selection and the post has been deleted."

Yeah, 28 years is going back in history a little far for our latest 'me' generation. They can barely remember 8 years ago, much less 28 years.

There's an old saying by George Santayana that, by American Apparel's excuse, no one under 100 will know: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

June 25, 2014

He's working as a policy consultant at EPA drawing up a policy that both respects workers' rights and deals with the Poop Bandit issue.

In the email, obtained by Government Executive, Deputy Regional Administrator Howard Cantor mentioned “several incidents” in the building, including clogging the toilets with paper towels and “an individual placing feces in the hallway” outside the restroom.

Confounded by what to make of this occurrence, EPA management “consulted” with workplace violence “national expert” John Nicoletti, who said that hallway feces is in fact a health and safety risk. He added the behavior was “very dangerous” and the individuals responsible would “probably escalate” their actions.

“Management is taking this situation very seriously and will take whatever actions are necessary to identify and prosecute these individuals,” Cantor wrote. He asked for any employees with knowledge of the poop bandit or bandits to notify their supervisor.

I'm like, you know, almost jealous that I'm not holding a degree in political science so I can work on the leading issues of the day.

I'm going out on a limb here, I think we can exclude any registered Republicans from the Poop Bandit suspect list. I mean I could be wrong, except I'm not.

Here is an actual excerpt (with profanity redacted). See if you are able to tell what Towson is arguing in favor or against:

They say the n*****s always already qu***, that's exactly the point! It means the impact is that the that the is the impact term, uh, to the afraid, uh, the, that it is a case term to the affirmative because, we, uh, we’re saying that qu*** bodies are not able to survive the necessarily means of the body. Uh, uh, the n***** is not able to survive.

Have no idea what the person was arguing? Here, maybe another real excerpt will help you:

Uh, man's sole "jabringing" object disfigure religion trauma and nubs, uh, the, inside the trauma of representation that turns into the black child devouring and identifying with the stories and into the white culture brought up, uh, de de de de de, dink, and add subjectively like a white man, the black man!

Again, this is a national championship. The organization that holds the debate was founded over 40 years ago and has held national debate tournaments for decades.

This is our future's brightest stars:

I posted this news report (Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit) instead of the actual debate because I'm guessing most of you don't want to sit through four hours of this nonsense.

May 06, 2014

I just finished grading my final exams for my intro class. This one test is worth 35% of the grade. So, naturally, one of the students didn't write their name on the test. And given that at least 4 other students were no shows for the exam, there's no way I can know who it was.

I also had an upper division course turn in their term papers last week. I just finished grading them. And you know what? One of the papers had no name on it as well. Now that one won't be too hard to figure out who wrote it and, in the process, brain farted.

But seriously .... the first rule of college is -- WRITE YOUR NAME!

/rant

Okay, that's my excuse for not blogging this week. Next week I'll be in Scotland, so no blogging for me. Any Scottish Jawa readers out there in the Edinburgh area?

April 11, 2014

Many parents don't know they can have their children opt out of participating in common core testing, supposedly without retribution. But some New York students are discovering that conformity results in rewards, while exercising the right to opt out results in punishment:

Seirra Olivero, a 13-year-old student at Orange-Ulster BOCES, claims she was suspended from school last week after telling classmates they could opt out of taking the Common Core English test -- a decision few students and parents in the area knew was possible, according to the girl's mother.

The eighth-grader was suspended for two days for "insubordination," following the April 1 incident, in which she informed her friends they had a choice whether or not to take the exam on the day of the test. [...]

In Arkport, N.Y., meanwhile, parents are complaining over a decision by school officials to reward students who took the Common Core English test with ice cream, while denying it to those children who opted out of the exam.

March 28, 2014

On the evening of December Rosa Parks decided that she was going to sit in the white people section on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. During this time blacks had to give up there seats to whites when more whites got on the bus. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Her and the bus driver began to talk and the conversation went like this. "Let me have those front seats" said the driver. She didn't get up and told the driver that she was tired of giving her seat to white people. "I'm going to have you arrested," said the driver. "You may do that," Rosa Parks responded. Two white policemen came in and Rosa Parks asked them "why do you all push us around?" The police officer replied and said "I don't know, but the law is the law and you're under arrest.

March 25, 2014

This annoys the hell out of me. Not only are these kids in college, they're at American University in the nation's capital. The thing is that a lot of these students go to American because they have political/governmental aspirations (but couldn't get into Georgetown).

February 25, 2014

And you thought The Derek Zoolander School for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Want to Do Other Stuff Good Too was fictional.

Earlier this month, The Post exposed a scheme at Manhattan's Murry Bergtraum HS for Business Careers in which failing students could get full credit without attending class, but instead watch video lessons and take tests online. One social-studies teacher had a roster of 475 students in all grades and subjects.

Red-faced administrators encouraged a student letter-writing campaign to attack The Post and defend its "blended learning" program. Eighteen kids e-mailed to argue that their alma mater got a bad rap.

Almost every letter was filled with spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. (Source)

February 13, 2014

January 09, 2014

VDH has some words about what's wrong with my profession and higher education in general. Go read it all, but this part especially stood out to me:

5. Administration. Much of the recent explosion in annual costs is due to administrative bloat — special assistants to this and deputy associates of that. Left unspoken is that many of these trumped-up six-figure positions are to promote “diversity” and “technology” that have little to do with mastery of reasoning, prose, and scientific knowledge. Most administrative jobs require less formal expertise than does a faculty position, and it is generally recognized that full professors who take on administrative positions are sometimes welcomed out of the classroom given their poor teaching and research records. But why should those who dreamed up exploitative part-time teaching positions be exempt from their own logic? Private enterprise could supply all sorts of part-time administrative clerks to the university at a fraction of the present in-house costs. If a PhD in French can be hired as a lecturer for $800 a month, surely the Associate Provost for Diversity Affairs can be part-timed and outsourced for $600?

Indeed. In the unit where I work we haven't added a new faculty member in years. The only new position has been an extra layer of administration added on to one of the subunits -- a "director" of a unit that only has two full time instructors. This "director" who only oversees two faculty members is so busy in their "work" that they've been excused from 1/2 of their teaching load.

And if you were to walk over to the administration building it would be worse. Far, far worse. I can't count the number of Dean-of-this-or-that and Assistant-Vice-Chancellor-of-obscure-little-fiefdom who have sprung up over the past 12 years.

December 06, 2013

Ironically, the most corrupt are countries embraced by the socialist leftists. The countries in which they choose to live and which they hate for being too capitalistic or too unfair are the least corrupt.

October 11, 2013

No longer allowed at the Weber Middle School in Port Washington, New York: footballs, baseballs, soccer balls, lacrosse balls and any other hardballs that could injure a child. Also off limits: rough games of tag and cartwheels unless an adult supervisor is on hand. [...]

A New Jersey school district is ordering all students who play soccer - and other non-contact sports - to wear helmets on the field.

Leftists have already dumbed down America's educational system. Students striving for excellence and excelling are demonized for making less motivated students feel inadequate. If the leftist get their way, every student will be riding the short bus...

Keep the general population ignorant and uneducated so the elite class can maintain control. That's the true agenda.

October 08, 2013

It’s long been known that America’s school kids haven’t measured well compared with international peers. Now, there’s a new twist: Adults don’t either.

In math, reading and problem-solving using technology – all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength – American adults scored below the international average on a global test, according to results released Tuesday.

The leftist agenda of dumbing down America so no one gets hurt feelings is now complete.

September 12, 2013

I once married a Muslim "man of color" and assumed, unthinkingly that, as an outsider himself, he might somehow identify with and make common cause with women.

I found that this misguided assumption was untrue and, in my new book, "An American Bride in Kabul," I write about my unsentimental education in such matters, an education which took place both in America and in Afghanistan long ago.

I had also once assumed that all formerly colonized peoples and Third World impoverished countries were filled with naturally noble inhabitants who were instinctively spiritual and kind to each other.

I quickly discovered that barbarism is indigenous to such regions, and that tribal and religious wars, the most profound misogyny, cruelty, and corruption were accepted asnormal." It was only a crime to criticize such practices.

We aspire to relate to them, to find common ground. To see that we're all the same, but the reality is we're not.